Does the use of reference organisms in radiological impact assessments provide adequate protection of all the species within an environment?

Non-human biota in radiological risk assessment is typically evaluated using Reference Organisms (ROs) or Reference Animals and Plants (RAPs), for all exposure situations. However, it still remains open whether the use of an increased number of species would improve the ability to demonstrate protec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Science of the total environment Vol. 658; pp. 189 - 198
Main Authors:	Charrasse, Benoit, Anderson, Amanda, Mora, Juan C., Smith, Justin, Cohenny, Emilie, Ikonen, Ari T.K., Kangasniemi, Ville, Zorko, Benjamin, Bonchuk, Yuri, Beaumelle, Léa, Gunawardena, Nipun, Amado, Valeria, Liptak, Lodovit, Leclerc, Elisabeth, Telleria, Diego
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Netherlands Elsevier B.V 25-03-2019 Elsevier
Subjects:	Absorbed dose rate Atmospheric release Nuclear Experiment Physics Radiological impact assessment Reference organism Representativeness Terrestrial non-human biota Reference organism Absorbed dose rate Atmospheric release Representativeness Terrestrial non-human biota Radiological impact assessment
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Summary:	Non-human biota in radiological risk assessment is typically evaluated using Reference Organisms (ROs) or Reference Animals and Plants (RAPs), for all exposure situations. However, it still remains open whether the use of an increased number of species would improve the ability to demonstrate protectiveness of the environment. In this paper, the representativeness of a broader list of fauna is tested in terms of the geometrical characteristics and habits for radiological risk assessments in the case of routine discharges from a nuclear installation: the Cadarache centre. A list of terrestrial animal species, compiled from ecological inventories carried out around it was evaluated. A first survey around the centre inventoried >400 terrestrial fauna species, which were then filtered to reduce the number to 28 species for which dose assessments were carried out. Despite the differences between geometries for those site-specific species and the ROs (including RAPs), the absorbed dose rates calculated for both were very close (within a factor of two). Regardless of the studied organism, the absorbed dose rates calculated for the discharge scenario were mainly related to internal exposure, particularly for tritium (3H) and carbon 14 (14C), showing that there would be an acceptable dose rates difference between species from the same organism group. Additionally, sensitivity analyses were conducted to determine if the use of generic, predefined ROs was enough to assure an adequate protection of endangered species. It was observed that for every radionuclide the difference between assessments for site-specific species and ROs are unlikely to exceed a factor of 3. Hence, the result of this evaluation indicates that the use of generic ROs for non-human biota radiological risk assessment covers sufficiently other species, including endangered ones. [Display omitted] •Ecological risk assessment of radiation is based on the use of reference organism (RO).•In a realistic scenario dose rates of site-specific vs reference organism were similar.•Considering species size and habitats do not improve numerical risk assessment quality.•3H and 14C contribution dominated dose rates in our case study scenario.•Use of ROs covers sufficiently other species belonging to same group.
ISSN:	0048-9697 1879-1026
DOI:	10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.163